“With Hope in the waiting room,” Alex said. “We found crayons and a few coloring books in your kitchen drawers, so we brought them here and Hope’s keeping them busy. We also found lots of finished pictures in the drawer. Who’s the artist?”
“Adam,” Meredith said softly. “It’s kind of a long story.”
“Well, you’ll have time to tell me everything.” Alex settled in the chair. “We don’t have to leave until the thirtieth. Daniel has to be back on duty by New Year’s Eve.”
Meredith had always dreaded the time they’d all go home, her grandfather to Florida and Alex to Atlanta, but this year, she wouldn’t. This year, Adam would stay.
For as long as you’ll have me, he’d said. Which would be a very long time.
Cincinnati, Ohio
Tuesday, December 22, 11:15 a.m.
Adam was surrounded by hugging arms and smiling faces—their group of friends and family. He hadn’t needed to tell them that Meredith was awake. Apparently, he’d had a sappy grin that had made the announcement for him.
The group had already devised a schedule for visiting her when she woke, rolling dice for position, which made him chuckle. They were pretty amazing, which made him even more grateful they’d welcomed him with open arms and unflinching support for his sobriety. There had been no judgments, no hard feelings. Just open affection.
The first two on the visitor list had already gone back. Alex and Daniel Vartanian, Meredith’s cousin and her husband, had arrived from Atlanta in the wee hours of the morning. Everyone agreed to give them the number one slot as they’d come the farthest. Adam had met them only briefly when Alex had hugged him so hard he thought he’d crack, whispering teary thanks for saving Meredith’s life.
“She saved mine first,” he’d told her and it was true. It had earned him another hard hug from Alex, a hearty handshake from Daniel, a chorus of awwwws from Meredith’s girlfriends—even Kendra, who’d never liked him. And a nod of approval from Clarke Fallon.
Once Alex and Daniel had disappeared into the ICU, Bailey’s daughter, Hope, came up and took Adam by the hand. “You need to meet people,” she said soberly and led him to a child-sized table where two blond, blue-eyed children were coloring. He’d have been able to tell that they were Daniel and Alex’s kids without introduction. Daniel had those same vivid blue eyes.
“These are my cousins,” Hope said. “Aunt Alex is their mom. This is Mary Katherine. She’s four. This is Tommy. He’s almost two. I’m their babysitter, because I’m the oldest.” She leaned in to whisper in his ear, as if imparting a great secret. “Aunt Meredith likes us a lot. If you’re going to be her boyfriend, it’d be good if you could like us, too.”
Biting back a smile, Adam’s answer was equally sober. “I can. I already like to color.”
Hope brightened. “You do?”
“Yep. Your aunt keeps some of my pictures on the fridge. Should we make her some to hang in her hospital room?”
Hope nodded. “That is a very good idea. What should we make?”
He pulled a grown-up chair to the small table. “What do we got?”
“Kistmas books,” Mary Katherine told him, with an adorable lisp. “I’m doing a tree. Tommy’s doing a reindeer.” Then she added in a whisper, “Not very well, but tell him it’s good.”
“I will,” Adam said gravely. He chose a gingerbread man and found a bubble of calm in the otherwise noisy room. He was halfway finished when his phone started playing the theme from Chicago. “I need to take this,” he said to Hope. “It’s work. I’ll be back later. Promise.” He stepped away from the table, grimacing when his back complained. Too many hours in that plastic chair in ICU. But he wouldn’t have traded a single one.
“This is Kimble,” he said, going into the hallway to answer the call.
“It’s Mia Mitchell. I’m here with Abe Reagan and a friend of ours. Her name is Dana. We told her about Linnie Holmes coming to Chicago with Shane. She may have a place for Linnie to stay.”
“That’s . . .” Adam had to clear his throat. “That’s wonderful.”
“Hi, Detective Kimble.” The voice was throaty and warm. “My name is Dana Buchanan. I’m on the board of New Start, a halfway house for young women coming out of the sex trade. I believe you have something similar in your town? Mariposa House?”
Adam chuckled. “We do.” He looked through the doorway at Wendi, who perched on Colby’s knee, deep in planning with the other women while Colby looked content. “I’m looking right at the woman who runs it, in fact. I’m in a hospital waiting room filled with nearly all their volunteers. They’re Dr. Fallon’s friends.” And Meredith was their glue. Mine, too. “She provides counseling services to Mariposa.” Pro bono, he’d learned.
“We’re sorry,” Reagan said. “We meant to ask how Dr. Fallon was doing first, but somebody jumped the gun.”
“Sorry,” Mitchell muttered. “How is she?”
“Awake. She’ll be hurting when the meds wear off, but the doctor expects her to make a full recovery.”
“That’s good,” Reagan said. “We’ve been sending prayers and good thoughts.”
“All appreciated. We’d keep Linnie with us, but she and Shane need each other.”
“And Linnie might need a fresh start,” Dana said.
“That, too.” Adam made himself think like Meredith. “What are the housing arrangements and will she have access to counseling?”
“Every resident has her own room. She’ll have access to health care—physical and mental health. She can choose to go to college if she wants, but if she doesn’t want that, she can train for a variety of different jobs. Is it okay if I send information to your e-mail?”
“Please do. I’ll make sure Linnie gets it. When could she move in?”
“We’ll have a vacancy after the New Year.”
“We appreciate this,” Adam said, not surprised when his voice was gruff. He wasn’t going to fight it. “Linnie deserves a new start.”
“That’s why we’re here,” Dana said. “We’ll be in touch.”
“Give your LT our regards,” Reagan said. “And Merry Christmas.”
They ended the call and Adam stood there a moment, feeling happy. Linnie could have a future. And he’d helped.
“Hey, Adam.” Trip’s deep rumble pulled him out of his thoughts. Quincy was with him. They looked wary. “How’s the doc?”
“Awake.” Adam had repeated the word a number of times and didn’t mind at all. “What’s up?”
Both men relaxed. “Follow-up,” Quincy said. “We’ve found out a few things in the last twenty-four. Can we talk somewhere?”
Adam looked wistfully at the small table with his half-finished picture of a gingerbread man. He’d have to finish it later. He might need to, if he was going to hear difficult news. “I haven’t eaten. You want to walk with me to the cafeteria?”
“I could eat,” Trip said.
“You can always eat.” Adam laughed. The three of them got sandwiches and found a table in the corner of the cafeteria, away from prying eyes and ears. “So hit me.”
“First,” Quincy said, “we searched Mike’s garages—he owned three. His mechanics say they’ve done a lot of repairs on black SUVs. We found the vehicle used on Saturday. The seats and the back window had been pulled out for replacement.”
“Because Linnie bled on the seats,” Adam said. “And she said he shot at her as she fled from him Saturday afternoon.”
Quincy nodded. “Yes. The mechanics said that Wyatt would just change one black SUV for another whenever they needed to be fixed.”
“We also found barrels of peroxide and acetone in the garage’s storage area,” Trip said. “Ingredients for TATP, the same explosive in the bomb Wyatt strapped to Andy Gold. There were triggers, fuses, cans . . . Mike could have made several more bombs. I don’t think Wyatt knew about th
em or he would have burned that garage down, too.”
“Good to know,” Adam said. He was about to take a bite of his sandwich, but Trip and Quincy glanced at one another strangely. He put the sandwich down. “What?”
“We got into Wyatt’s safe,” Trip said. “He had three fake passports—one U.S., one Canadian, and one Bahamian. There was also a list of bank accounts and passwords.”
“How much did he have hidden away?” Adam asked, not really wanting to know.
“Over forty million bucks,” Trip said quietly.
The very number made Adam’s stomach churn. “Enough incentive for him to try to get into his house once more.” Because he’d wondered why Hanson had taken that risk.
“Yes,” Trip agreed simply. “He also had all kinds of records in there—dirt on a lot of politicians and influential people. He kept a notebook, written in code. Decker translated it.” Because Kate’s Decker was good with codes. “Some of it was potential people he could blackmail later. The Buon Cibo hostess, for example, skated on an arrest for possession. He knew she was desperate for money and he had her phone number because he was the arresting officer. So when he needed a favor from that restaurant, he knew where to go.”
“He had entries about all the neighbors, all his ‘employees,’ money and favors he paid out, and his ‘property,’” Quincy said. “You want the hard stuff first or the harder stuff?”
“Let’s work our way up,” Adam said warily.
Trip nodded. “Okay. Wyatt took in blackmail money from a lot of people, but he paid John Kasper, your sponsor. More specifically, he paid John’s wife’s doctor bills. She’s sick. Cancer. That’s why John sold you out.”
Adam drew a breath. “I guess it’s a better reason than a free SUV.”
“Still a betrayal,” Quincy murmured.
“Yeah. How will his wife get her care from here on out?”
The two looked at each other again. “She’s gone, too,” Trip said quietly. “Isenberg and Deacon did the notification and she was found dead the next day. She’d OD’d on painkillers. I don’t think she knew her husband had betrayed you.”
“Good,” Adam said. “I wouldn’t want her to suffer any more.”
Trip sighed. “You’re a good man, Adam. Which makes the next thing harder to tell you. So I just will. We found Paula’s family. They live in a very rural part of southeastern Ohio. Lots of farms. Paula was playing outside six years ago and disappeared. There was a notation in Wyatt’s notebook—a street address and a date. No city or state. It would have taken us a while to search all the addresses against reports of missing children. Her family found me. I put her photo out online yesterday and her family saw it last night.”
“Wyatt just . . . just took her?”
Quincy nodded. “Looks like it. She’d just come home from the state school for the deaf. It was the first day of summer vacation.”
“You informed her family?” Adam asked, torn between gratitude and irritation.
“We did,” Trip said, his voice heavy with sympathy. “They’d like to meet you sometime. I told them you were tied up in personal matters now, but you’d be willing to see them when Dr. Fallon is out of the woods. They want to thank you. For trying to help their daughter. And for paying to bury her.”
Adam looked away, overcome. “They want to thank me?” he whispered. He gave up the pretense of control and wiped his eyes on the back of his hand. “Does Nash know?”
“Not yet,” Quincy said. “We were going to see him next.”
“He’ll want to meet them, too. He’s been putting flowers on her grave every month.”
Trip hesitated. “If you two need anyone to go with you when you meet with the family, I’m happy to go, too.”
Adam was so finished with trying to go it alone. “Thanks. I’d like that.”
The three of them sat in heavy silence for a long time. Until the ringing of Adam’s cell phone had them all jumping. It was the generic ringtone for people he didn’t know. But when Adam saw the caller ID, he blinked. It was Ray, the owner of the condo. The man whose daughter was kidnapped. The case Adam and Wyatt had solved together. Raymond never called him. With growing dread, Adam answered. “Ray?”
“Adam. Hi. I can’t talk long. It’s one fifteen here and I have to get to bed, but I needed to call you first.”
“Where are you?”
“Japan. Look, I saw the news out of the States. That Wyatt Hanson was a murderer.”
“That made the news over there?” Adam asked, surprised.
“I have an online subscription to the Ledger, just to get news from home. What I needed to tell you is that Skye saw the report and she had a panic attack. It’s been years since she had one. She saw Wyatt’s picture while I was reading the article. She’d never seen him, you know, after the ordeal. Only you kept up with us. He didn’t, except to ask me for stock tips. She said she remembered him. He was one of the men who took her.”
Adam’s mouth fell open. “What? Is she sure?”
“She said she was certain, over and over before we finally got her calmed down enough to go to sleep. It makes a lot of sense. There were no leads, but Hanson spied the car carrying her. Both the men who were trying to get her help were killed.”
“So they couldn’t turn on him,” Adam murmured. “I was shot with one of the men’s guns, but Wyatt killed the man right afterward. Said the guy was aiming for my head, so he shot the man first. I wonder now who fired the shot that actually hit my leg.”
“That I don’t know. I just wanted you to know about Skye.”
“Thanks, Raymond. Give my best to Skye, okay?”
“You got it. There’s my train. Gotta go. My morning alarm goes off in a few hours.”
The call ended and Adam was left staring at his phone. Numbly he told Trip and Quincy about Skye’s kidnapping, finishing with what Raymond had told him.
“Wyatt kidnapped her?” Quincy asked.
“That’s what Skye says now.” Adam shook his head, still stunned. “That means Wyatt was running scams from the very beginning. I was a rookie when that happened. And Skye almost died.”
“But she didn’t,” Trip said. “Because you saved her.”
Adam nodded. “Yeah. I did, didn’t I?”
Trip gripped Adam’s arm. “You gonna be okay, man? You’ve just been hit with a mountain of shit.”
“Yeah.” Adam nodded again. “But I did my job and Skye’s alive. I did my job and Paula’s not. But I did my best. Sometimes that’s not going to be good enough.”
And that was the simple truth.
“What happens next?” Trip asked, giving him a cautious look.
“I think I’m going back upstairs to finish coloring my gingerbread man. Then I’ll see Meredith, then I’ll go to her house and get it ready for when she comes home. I have to fix the lock on her back door.”
“And then?” Trip pressed and Adam understood.
“I’m not hitting the bar. If I feel the urge, I’ll call one of you. How’s that?”
“Good,” Quincy said. “That’s what we wanted to hear.”
“I could use an assist, though,” Adam said thoughtfully. “I’d like to go see my mom, but I always have to listen to my father’s shit. If one of you wanted to go with me . . . maybe intimidate him a little?”
Trip looked fiendishly delighted. “I would be happy to, man. Just name the time.”
“This afternoon? Mom’s overdue a visit.”
“We can hit my favorite barbecue place on the way,” Trip promised.
Adam looked at Trip’s empty plate and laughed. “Sounds like a plan.”
Cincinnati, Ohio
Tuesday, December 22, 6:30 p.m.
It was after sundown before Adam finally returned. Meredith had been moved out of ICU into a private room where she’d been watching for him for
hours, through all the visitors she’d had. She sighed with relief when he finally tiptoed in, hands behind his back.
“I’m not asleep,” she said and he relaxed.
“Good. I was hoping it would be my turn again. Your dance card was full today.”
“It was nice to see everyone. But I really just wanted to dance with you.”
He leaned over her bed rail and gave her a sweet kiss. “Good, because I’m back and you’re stuck with me for a few days. I took the rest of the week off. How do you feel?”
“I hurt. So let’s talk about something else. What did you bring me?” she asked cheekily. He produced the small Christmas tree from behind his back. It stood about eight inches tall and bore one sad ornament that bowed it over. “A Charlie Brown tree! I love it.”
He set it on the tray table. “I figured you would. You’re a sucker for the underdog.”
She smiled up at him. “It’s true. I heard you were busy after you left here.”
“It’s true,” he said. “I’ll give you the details tomorrow when you’re feeling better.”
“I got some of the details from Kate and Wendi. I heard about Linnie’s placement. We’re all over the moon about that.”
“Me, too. Linnie seemed thrilled and Shane is too relieved for words.” Adam sat next to her and held her two unhurt fingers. “I went to see my mom this afternoon.”
“Yeah, Quincy mentioned that when he visited. He said you had a bodyguard.”
Adam smiled. “Trip went with me to keep my dad leashed. It was a nice visit.”
“I’m glad.” She was, even though Mrs. Kimble didn’t deserve a son like Adam.
“She wants to meet you, but I told her that I didn’t want my dad around you. She promised she’d come alone. Maybe on Christmas. You should be home by then.”
“I’ll be nice,” Meredith promised and hoped she could keep the promise.
“I’d appreciate it.” He kissed her fingers. “I fixed the lock on your basement door.”
“Thank you.”
He lifted a brow, his expression growing abruptly wicked. “Oh, I didn’t do it for free. Not like all the volunteer work I do all over town. I expect to be paid.”